Mr. Burns
Charles Montgomery "Monty" Burns, often known as Mr. Burns or simply Burns, is one of the main antagonists (and sometimes an anti-hero) of the long-running animated comedy television series The Simpsons, and a minor antagonist in the 2007 theatrical film The Simpsons Movie. He is the founder and chairman of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and the boss of Homer Simpson, and Waylon Smithers, his right hand man who (heavily implied) is attracted to him. He is also Lisa Simpson's archenemy. He was voiced by the late Christopher Collins (known as Chris Latta) who also voiced Starscream and Cobra Commander in his first appearance then by Harry Shearer for the rest of the series. Personality Mr. Burns embodies a number of stereotypes about corporate America, as he has an unquenchable desire to increase his own wealth and power. Burns also embodies the stereotype of a manager by forgetting his employees' names (especially Homer's, despite it appearing that they interact more than Burns does with most of his employees), though this can be attributed to his senility. Burns is also unconcerned and dispassionate for their safety and well-being. His aspirations to apply obsolete technology to everyday life or references to Victorian-era people or places provide a common source of humor on the show. Recently, he has become less evil and more eccentric. He is a Republican. History He had a very difficult childhood and has a large desire of various goals. He is the boss of Homer Simpson, the main protagonist of The Simpsons. At some points, Mr. Burns has done non-evil plans. He rewarded Homer for saving his life from a water fountain just to retrieve a penny, he paid for Homer's emergency liposuction in "King Sized Homer" as a reward for saving the city from a nuclear meltdown, and achieved his goal of winning a snowboard competition, which he always wanted to do as a child. Mr. Burns is rarely shown to have a 'human' sense of feeling however he has been shown to miss things such as his teddy bear Bobo who he lost during his childhood. However, the way he must get Bobo back alternates back to his usual self when he tries to steal the teddy bear back from Maggie Simpson who has grown attached to him. In the end when all hope seems lost Maggie gives Bobo back to Mr. Burns and is later shown being tucked into bed with Bobo by Mr. Smithers. Here, Mr Burns. says he will never let Bobo out of his sight again and drifts off to sleep and a scene begins set sometime in the distant future when humans are replaced by robots and Mr. Burns and Mr. Smithers are both robots themselves. It shows the robot Mr. Burns telling Bobo once more that he will never let him out of his sight again. Homer sometimes accidentally called Mr. Burns on the telephone and Burns didn't know it was Homer, such as Lisa's Date with Density and Bart Star. He is voiced by Harry Shearer (originally Christopher Collins AKA Chris Latta AKA G1 Starscream and Cobra Commander). In many episodes of the Simpsons, Mr. Burns is shown to be a villain particularly in Treehouse of Horror episodes. In one particular episode Treehouse of Horror IV, Mr. Burns was a vampire and no one but Lisa knew the truth. However Lisa and Bart find Mr. Burns' secret lair however when Bart is enticed by the 'fun slide' he gets turned into a vampire and when the family find out they are worried he will get worse, and decide that they must killed the head vampire, Mr. Burns. Homer takes a stake and after many fails kills him (while getting fired by Burns), however it is revealed at the end when all seems again that the head vampire is Marge Simpson. Ironically, Mr. Burns became a superhero in one episode called Dark Knight Court and helps clear Bart's name by capturing the real culprit, Groundskeeper Willie. Villainous Acts Here are all of Mr. Burns's evil deeds in some of the episodes he appeared in. The underlined episodes are where Mr. Burns serves as the main antagonist of that episode. Season 1 * In the very first episode of the series Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, Burns cancelled all of his workers' Christmas bonuses, which left a disappointed Homer to work as a mall Santa after learning that Marge blew all of the family's Christmas money to remove a tattoo from Bart's arm. Season 2 *In "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish", Burns ran for Governor against incumbent governor Mary Bailey in hopes preventing his plant from being shut down after it was proven to be the cause of a three-eyed fish. This is the first episode where he was the main antagonist. *In "Bart Gets Hit by a Car", Burns accidentally hits Bart with his car. To avoid a lawsuit, Burns offers to pay $100 to Homer, but Homer refuses as it barely covers Bart's medical bills and that he wants to sue Burns (with the help from the quacky lawyer Lionel Hutz) to get a $1 million settlement. To that end, Homer and Hutz get Bart to exaggerate his minor injuries on trial in order to win the jury's favor, much to Burns' dismay. Summoning Homer and Marge to his residence, Burns attempts to rectify his actions by offering a sum of $500,000. However, he soon withdraws it after overhearing Homer's refusal and Marge's 'shifty lawyers and phony doctors' statement, realizing their true plan to win the jury's favor by lying in court. To that end, Burns gets his lawyer to put Marge on the stand and make her confess of the perjury that Homer and Hutz committed, resulting Burns to win the trial and leave the Simpsons with nothing. Season 3 *In Stark Raving Dad, Burns deemed Homer insane due to wearing a pink shirt to work (due to Bart putting his red hat in the white laundry) and has him committed to an insane asylum, though Homer would later be released by Marge. *In Bart the Murderer, Burns learns of an event that Bart, along with Fat Tony and the Springfield Mafia, are being arrested for the disappearance and supposed murder of Principal Skinner. Burns relishes on the fact that Bart is going to be tried as an adult and convicted, though Skinner turns out to be alive and clears both Bart and the Mafia's names by confessing that he was actually trapped in a huge pile of newspaper over a week. *In "Dog of Death", Burns adopted the Simpsons family dog Santa's Little Helper (who ran away after being unappreciated by the Simpsons due to the losses over a hospital operation they had to pay to fix his twisted stomach). Burns puts Santa's Little Helper through torture to become a bloodthirsty killer dog to attack any intruders on Burns' property. However, Bart comes by to rescue Santa's Little Helper by reminding the latter of the good times they had, prompting Santa's Little Helper to snap out of his trance and return back to the Simpsons in peace. Season 4 *In "Marge Gets A Job", Marge gets a job at the nuclear plant, and Burns attempts to woo her for himself until he learns that she is married to Homer, and fires her on the spot. *In "Marge vs. the Monorail", Burns was caught dumping nuclear waste into the park by the EPA and was forced to pay a fine of $3 million, much to his dismay. * In So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show, Homer is in a coma (due to a April Fools joke engineered by Bart), and Burns attempts to pull the plug on Homer's life support system to avoid paying for Homer's health insurance (to no avail). Season 5 *In "Burns' Heir", he picks Bart as his new heir to the fortune, and attempts to separate him from his family to ensure of it. However, Bart refuses to leave his family behind and instead drops Burns through a trapdoor before reuniting with his family. *In "Lady Bouvier's Lover", Burns falls in love with Marge's mother Jacqueline and wants to marry her, much to Marge's disapproval. However, Jackie decides to forget about it due to Burns' boorish behavior. Season 6 *In "Sideshow Bob Roberts", Burns and the Springield Republican Party took in Sideshow Bob (Bart's archenemy) as their new candidate for the mayoral election, to which Bob managed to win. However, unknown to Burns and the rest of the party, Bob secretly rigged the election by putting in deceased people as active voters. Eventually, Smithers found out about the electoral fraud and secretly informed Bart and Lisa, who then tricked Bob into confessing his crime at court, resulting Bob's arrest. *In "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds", he takes 25 puppies and plots to kill them for their fur, though he decides to change his mind after seeing how lovely they are, and instead decides to raise them as racing dogs. *In "Who Shot Mr. Burns Part One", he commits many villainous acts that causes trouble for his fellow Springfield citizens, such as stealing an oil well buried beneath Springfield Elementary, which caused so many layoffs, the shut-down of Moe's tavern, the sinkhole that destroyed the local retirement home, and the injuries of the Simpson family dog. He also created a sun-blocking device to raise prices for the electricity he's supply for the town, much to everyone's horror. Eventually, in the end, Burns gets shot in the chest by an unknown assailant. Season 7 *In "Who Shot Mr. Burns Part Two", Burns is in a coma as the authorities attempt to find out who shot him while the citizens manage to destroy his sun-blocking device for good. Much of the evidence points out to Homer (due to his anger towards Burns for his inability to remember his name, and Homer's fingerprints found on the gun that fired the shot), but Burns wakes up from his coma and reveals that Homer's youngest daughter Maggie was the one who shot him. As it turns out, Burns spotted Maggie inside the Simpsons' car holding a lollipop and attempts to steal it, but his gun accidentally fell into Maggie's hands after he snatched the lollipop, causing the gun to misfire. Both the gun and the lollipop fell into the bottom seat, where Homer would unknowingly leave his fingerprints. Burns demanded that Maggie be arrested, but Chief Wiggum states that it's unlawful to arrest a baby for a crime. Marge also adds that it was an accident as Maggie doesn't know how to handle a gun at her age (though it may be told otherwise due to Maggie's shifting eyes and sucking noises sounding like gunshots). *In "Mother Simpson", it was revealed that he was responsible for turning Homer's mother Mona into a wanted criminal, due to her involvement of shutting down his germ warfare factory by releasing antibiotics. To that rate, he gets the FBI to track down Mona, though she escapes (thanks to Homer and Chief Wiggum). *In "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in Curse of the Flying Hellfish", he crosses the Moral Event Horizon as he attempts to murder Grampa Simpson to get a collection of stolen German paintings, even attempting to drown Bart. However, Grampa saves Bart and defeats Burns while the stolen paintings are returned to the German government, leaving Burns empty-handed. Season 8 *In "The Old Man and the Lisa", Burns temporarily loses his fortune due to bad investments and turned over to Lisa for help, and she taught him how to recycle. This allowed Burns to open up a recycling plant to regain his fortune back, but is revealed he's using his new plant to catch tons of sea creatures to make a new multi-purpose edible compound, much to Lisa's horror. He even offered to pay Lisa 10% of the profits as thanks, but Lisa declines it. Season 9 *In "The Trouble With Trillions", Burns stole a trillion dollar bill from the U.S. Government during World War 2, and kept it under his possession until he was ratted out to the FBI. Burns, Smithers and Homer were forced to evacuate to Cuba, where they lost the bill to Fidel Castro, who then banishes them back to the States, much to their dismay. Season 10 *In "Monty Can't Buy Me Love", Burns attempts to capture the Loch Ness Monster in order to win the heart of Springfield's population. Though he manages to capture the monster (who turns out to be friendly), the veiling of the monster turns out to be a disaster due to a fire caused by camera flashes, leaving Burns unloved. However, Homer cheers him up by saying that being loved means you have to be nice to people everyday but being hated means you do not have to do anything. Season 11 * In "Grift of the Magi", Springfield Elementary School was closed down after suffering a series of budget cuts. Much of the townspeople put out their pleas to Burns to provide a donation to reopen the school, but he flatly refuses. Eventually, a toy company called Kid First Industries bought the school, as they intend to use it take down the competition of other toy companies. However, Burns has a change of heart after having an epiphany and donated enough money to restore Springfield Elementary to normal before having Christmas dinner with the Simpsons and Gary Coleman. Season 12 *In "Homer vs. Dignity", the Simpson family is facing money woes, so Homer asks Burns for a raise. Taking advantage of this, Burns hires Homer as his prank monkey to perform embarrassing tasks in exchange for money. However, Lisa learns of this and convinces Homer to stop, saying that dignity is more important than money. Season 13 *In "She of Little Faith", Homer accidentally damaged the local church with his flying rocket, and Burns offers to pay for the damages by turning the church into commercial business, complete with advertising signs, a Lard Lad statue, and a Jumbotron. This motivated a disgusted Lisa to leave the church and find a new path in Buddhism. Season 14 *In "C.E. D'oh", Homer formulates several solutions to improve safety in the nuclear plant, but Mr. Burns rejects them all without even reading them. This angers Homer in plotting to overthrow Burns, and finds an opportunity that Burns owns a canary that acts as the legal owner of the plant because this protects Mr. Burns from responsibility for any wrongdoing by the power plant. To that end, Homer releases the canary and tricks Burns into handing over the ownership under the ruse of an incoming inspection, resulting a victorious Homer to fire Burns on the spot. As such, Burns plans to kill Homer by burying him alive, but decides to forget about it when Homer gives the plant back, as he finds himself more miserable being the nuclear plant's owner. Season 15 * In My Mother the Carjacker, Burns learns that Mona has been arrested and plans to have her convicted on court for her crimes. However, due to Mona's record of community service acts and Homer's heartfelt testimony, Mona became rightfully acquitted, much to Burns' anger. Not wanting to give up, Burns transforms his germ lab into a museum, which is nothing more than a ruse to successfully trick Mona into confessing her crime of signing false names while visiting state and national parks. With this evidence, Burns gets the FBI to arrest Mona and have her locked up in prison, but she escapes again (thanks to Homer's help), much to Burns' dismay. *In "Simple Simpson", Homer served as Springfield's local hero known as the "Pie Man" who is giving wrong-doers their 'just desserts' by throwing pies in their faces as punishment for their crimes. He eventually threw a pie at Mr. Burns for bullying him and his co-workers, but Burns soon learns about his identity and makes him his 'personal hitman', threatening to expose his identity to the public if otherwise. As Burns give Homer his next mission to throw a pie at the visiting Dalai Lama, Homer decides that he has had enough and reveals himself to the public, though none of the citizens believe that Homer could be the Pie Man. This left Burns upset, realizing that Homer is no longer under his control anymore. *In "Fraudcast News", after surviving a rock slide, Burns learns that everyone in Springfield hates him, so he decides to buy every media outlet in Springfield to improve his image. As Lisa produces her own newspaper to combat against Burns' media ownership, Burns manages to learn about Milhouse's crush on Lisa and exposes this to the public, prompting a depressed Lisa to concede defeat. However, Lisa gets cheered up when Homer creates his own newspaper, inspiring other citizens to create their own newspapers to combat against Burns' media. Realizing now that he can't control the entire media for himself, Burns decides to put that behind by going on a shopping spree with Smithers for relief. Season 16 *In "Midnight Rx", Burns cancels the plant's prescription drug program, prompting other drug companies to follow his lead. This caused an outraged Homer and Grampa to smuggle drugs from Canada, and Burns eventually realized his mistake after learning that Smithers is suffering from a goiter. To that end, Burns helps Homer and Grampa smuggle a large case of a drugs to Springfield in order to save Smithers. During which, he leaves Homer and his dad to die, but they survive. After saving Smithers, Burns reinstates the prescription program, much to everyone's delight. *In "The Seven-Beer Snitch", Burns bought an abandoned concert hall built by Frank Gehry (due to the town's hatred of classical music) and turns it into a maximum-security prison to lock up more convicts based on old laws. After Homer was sent there after committing an 'illegal transportation of litter' by kicking a can five times down the street, Burns made him the local prison snitch after Homer unwittingly foiled Snake Jailbird's escape attempt. As reward for his snitching, Homer receives special treatment from the guards (led by Officer Krackney), but the other inmates soon catch on to Homer's intents and planned to kill him during a prison riot. Having realized his mistake in ruining the inmates' lives in the prison, Homer decides to take action by confessing to the Governor Bailey about the prison's deplorable conditions, resulting Governor Bailey to close down the prison and send the inmates into a garbage barge to fight, much to the inmates' delight. Season 17 *In "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas", Burns promised to donate $1 million to the Cheery Red Tomatoes for a children's hospital, but it turns out to be a joke for his own pleasure. As such, the Red Tomatoes plan to steal Burns' Faberge Eggs as revenge, and Marge (who became a member herself) manages to do the job herself, much to their delight. Season 19 *In "Mona Leaves-a", following Mona's death, Homer was told to bring her ashes to the highest point at Springfield Monument Park and scatter them at exactly 3:00. However, Homer gets caught over Burns' next plot to send a nuclear missile (filled with the city's nuclear waste) into the Amazon rain-forest, and Burns contains Mona's ashes in a vacuum bag to taunt Homer. As Burns and his men are about to initiate the launch, the rest of the Simpson family came to rescue Homer, who managed to stop the launch by inadvertently setting the launch base to self-destruct before escaping with his family and dispersing his mother's ashes for good, leaving a dismayed Burns in utter defeat. Season 24 *In "To Cur, With Love", the Simpson family confronted Homer for neglecting Santa's Little Helper by locking him in the pantry. Grampa revealed that Homer once had a dog named Bongo, whom he is very close to during his childhood. As Mr. Burns was hosting a kid's fundraiser, he insulted Homer, resulting an angry Bongo to attack Burns in retaliation. Unfortunately, this incited an angry Burns to have Bongo euthanized by all means necessary. Knowing that this would break Homer's heart if he let this happen, Grampa gave Bongo away to an old neighbor named Ms. Viola for safety before doing extra work for Mr. Burns to make amends for the incident. Unfortunately, this only strains Grampa's relationship with Homer as a result, as he feels that Bongo will never remember him, which may explain his neglectful behavior towards Santa's Little Helper. Eventually, Grampa gave Homer an old photo of Bongo sleeping on an old sweatshirt that he once wore, realizing that Bongo still remembered him and that Grampa did a favor to protect him from Burns. After reconciling with each other, Homer and Grampa shared a nap together with Santa's Little Helper. ''The Simpsons Movie'' Burns serves as a minor character in The Simpsons Movie. He is first seen getting his toothbrush filled with toothpaste from help by Smithers during the movie intro. The paste apparently added more weight that the already fragile Burns could not handle, as he falls down with his toothbrush. Burns was later seen with the angry mob along with Smithers, as they want to kill Homer for polluting the Springfield Lake and forcing Russ Cargill and the Environmental Protection Agency to imprison the city in a strong unbreakable dome. His most notable appearance in the movie was when Apu, Police Chief Wiggum, and Dr. Hibbert asked him for electricity and Burns asked for reasons why he should share it with them, warning that behind his desk, he has two buttons. One that will give the town electricity and the other that will release the hounds. Dr. Hibbert said he needed the electricity to perform an operation. Wiggum said he needed it to power up the electric chair so they could execute a convict; Burns seemed he was about to cooperate with that one. However, Apu ticked him off by trying to appeal to Burns' conscience and Burns pushed the button that released the hounds and they chased the visitors out the door, with Burns telling them to take the "first door on the right". Mr. Burns was last seen relieved that the explosive bomb left the dome area of the city. During the credits following Cargill's defeat, it is shown that his mansion has been ransacked, and sits on the staircase with Smithers and says, "Smithers, I don't believe in suicide, but if you try it, it might cheer me up to watch." Trivia *Along with Sideshow Bob, Kang & Kodos, Mr. Burns serves as one of the main antagonists of the franchise; however, in The Simpsons Movie, they are all outranked by Russ Cargill. *Mr. Burns signs his will as "Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns" in the episode of season 22, Flaming Moe, which implies that he is related to Adolf Hitler and a descendant of the House of Plantagenet. *He is also one of the many Simpsons characters who guest star on the Family Guy episode "The Simpsons Guy". 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